Milk Kefir Cheddar and Garlic Drop Biscuits

With a crumb halfway between an American scone and an English tea biscuit, these drop biscuits are the perfect texture for dipping and dunking. Light and flaky yet dense and hearty enough to soak up broth or sauce. Loaded with layers of cheese and garlic flavour with just a hint of heat from the cayenne. Super easy to make with minimal clean up. Perfect for every meal, any time of day.

Whenever you are looking for an easy carb side dish to accompany your main meal and don’t have a ton of time to pull it together, this recipe is exactly what you need! Made from start to finish in under 25 minutes. Even better, this recipe is all made in just one bowl! No blending the butter, no rolling pin or biscuit cutter required! Just mix the dry and wet ingredients together in one bowl, give it a few kneads and then scoop, drop and bake.

Drop biscuits tend to have a relatively wet dough from a higher ratio of liquid to dry ingredients than other biscuit doughs. This is achieved in this recipe through the combination of a few key liquid ingredients. The secret ingredient? Milk kefir! This fantastic ingredient has a ton of probiotic cultures and is the best combination of yogurt and milk, giving it a perfect consistency. Milk kefir is thicker than milk but thinner than yogurt. It straddles between the two viscosity-wise while still having the lovely tang found in plain yogurt. It makes the dough wet enough to scoop and drop while still having a moist center. Instead of using both milk and yogurt and trying to find the perfect balance, just stick with milk kefir instead. The final wet ingredients are maple syrup for a bit of sweetness and melted unsalted butter. I will pretty much always use real maple syrup instead of sugar for dough-based recipes. Frankly, it just tastes better.

The flakiest biscuit doughs use cold pieces of butter mixed in with the dry ingredients. This is achieved by either grating the butter using a cheese grater or cutting the butter into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender. The purpose of this biscuit recipe however, is to be made as quick as possible with minimal effort and steps needed. Have no fear, there is still a way to get flaky layers without those extra steps... by using melted butter. The trick is to mix the melted butter with the cold milk kefir. While stirring them together the melted butter will start to re-solidify in small clumps, meaning you will get small pieces of butter distributed throughout the dough without the extra work.

To get started, whisk together the dry ingredients and most of the grated cheddar cheese in a medium-sized bowl using a fork- save a little grated cheese for later! Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients- this is where the wet ingredients will be added. Pour the milk kefir, maple syrup and melted butter into the center of the well. Use a fork to whisk the wet ingredients together until the butter starts to form small clumps. Try to avoid mixing in any of the dry ingredients until the wet are fully mixed together. Once this step has been tackled, you can start to slowly mix the dry and wet ingredients together. Using the fork, keep mixing the wet and dry ingredients until it starts to clump together. Next, using clean hands, knead the dough for 10-20 turns by gently folding the dough in half and lightly pushing it down for each turn. As you knead, the flour will start to mix in and the dough will get sticky. Flip the dough over a few times to make sure the flour still in the bottom of the bowl gets mixed in as well. When there is no flour left and the dough stays in a rough ball shape it’s ready to go. Each fold/knead will ensure a good number of layers in the finished product.

The last step before baking is scooping! Use a large scoop, such as one typically used for muffins or scones. It should hold about 1/4 cup of dough. You can use a measuring cup if you don’t have a large scoop. Use just enough dough to fill the scoop and then plop the semi-sphere that comes out on a lined baking mat. This recipe should make enough for 12-14 drop biscuits. Space each biscuit out in a 3 x 4 grid, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and bake until the biscuits are just starting to brown.

To take these biscuits over the top, brush them with a mix of garlic powder, melted butter, a pinch of salt and either fresh parsley or chives right after they come out of the oven. By doing this while the biscuits are still warm, the butter mix will soak into the top layer, making them extra buttery. Store the leftovers in a container once they’ve cooled down. They are best eaten within a day or two - they never seem to last longer then that in our household.

These biscuits are incredibly adaptable. Feel free to play with the additions by changing things up. Garlic and cheddar too boring for you? Try adding a ¼ cup of fresh herbs to the melted butter and milk kefir step for some extra flavour. Or for extra salty goodness, try adding some bacon chunks to the dough. Have fun experimenting with different combinations of cheese and herbs depending on the meal you want to pair them with. For example, parmesan, white cheddar and rosemary is always a winning combination.

These cheddar garlic drop biscuits are the perfect cheesy side for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Cut them in half and load them with breakfast sausages, fried eggs and cheese to make an epic breakfast burger. Turn them into lunch sliders or dip and dunk them in stews, soups or chili for supper. You may even recognize an earlier version of these biscuits featured in photos of my Instant Pot bean and brown lentil chili recipe.

Super easy, all done in one bowl with just a fork or spoon. The ultimate lazy cheese biscuits. No cutting butter, no rolling, no fuss no mess. An excellent extra buttery, cheesy and flakey addition to any meal.